Aug 21, 2026 · 1 hr 19 min · 14 segments
New host Ari Cohn sits down with Taylor Lorenz to unpack the latest push for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), the SCREEN Act, and online age verification. They discuss the free speech and privacy…
Ari CohnHost
Taylor LorenzGuest
Well, it's interesting that it seems like I guess teenagers in France have more First Amendment rights than a lot of young people even here right now.
And that's all to say nothing about about the fact that we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak anonymously.
But we do, time after time, the government has tried to impose, say, restrictions on putting your name, you have to put your name on a political flyer or a leaflet.
And the Supreme Court has said over and over again, it doesn't matter if the government thinks that the electorate would find, quote unquote, additional information about who made the flyer useful.
Any kind of legitimate interest in forcing political speakers to identify themselves before they are allowed to engage in civic conversation doesn't override your right to make your political views known and not necessarily tie your name to it, which is incredibly important.
When you think about the number of deeply unpopular ideas that have ultimately found their way into acceptance, but they never started out that way.
They always started out the type of thing that, you know, got you ostracized at best and, you know, potentially far worse.
You know, for all the talk of quote unquote heritage Americans or whatever the hell the people are saying these days.
You know, there's not a lot of thought given to the fact that some of the very things this country was founded on and founded to protect are not just being tossed under the bus, but tossed directly into the wood chipper and then the shavings are being retrieved and put through it one more time.
Yeah, I mean, I just think the fact that so many people are against anonymous speech generally online today is concerning.
I've brought this up many times, but I went to this event at the White House back in the end of summer 2024.
They had this big content creators day and they had Neera Tanden, a senior advisor to Biden, up with all these content creators, you know, praising COSA, talking about how they're going to remove anonymity from the internet and that's going to make everyone safer.
And these... idiot content creators are like cheering, you know, and you constantly hear this.
I mean, I'm in very much like a lot of these sort of like online safety spaces and you'll hear, well, this is for safety.
Well, it's interesting that it seems like I guess teenagers in France have more First Amendment rights than a lot of young people even here right now.
And that's all to say nothing about about the fact that we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak anonymously.
But we do, time after time, the government has tried to impose, say, restrictions on putting your name, you have to put your name on a political flyer or a leaflet.
And the Supreme Court has said over and over again, it doesn't matter if the government thinks that the electorate would find, quote unquote, additional information about who made the flyer useful.
Any kind of legitimate interest in forcing political speakers to identify themselves before they are allowed to engage in civic conversation doesn't override your right to make your political views known and not necessarily tie your name to it, which is incredibly important.
When you think about the number of deeply unpopular ideas that have ultimately found their way into acceptance, but they never started out that way.
They always started out the type of thing that, you know, got you ostracized at best and, you know, potentially far worse.
You know, for all the talk of quote unquote heritage Americans or whatever the hell the people are saying these days.
You know, there's not a lot of thought given to the fact that some of the very things this country was founded on and founded to protect are not just being tossed under the bus, but tossed directly into the wood chipper and then the shavings are being retrieved and put through it one more time.
Yeah, I mean, I just think the fact that so many people are against anonymous speech generally online today is concerning.
I've brought this up many times, but I went to this event at the White House back in the end of summer 2024.
They had this big content creators day and they had Neera Tanden, a senior advisor to Biden, up with all these content creators, you know, praising COSA, talking about how they're going to remove anonymity from the internet and that's going to make everyone safer.
And these... idiot content creators are like cheering, you know, and you constantly hear this.
I mean, I'm in very much like a lot of these sort of like online safety spaces and you'll hear, well, this is for safety.
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